Time for your weekly edition of the Defector Funbag. Got something on your mind? Email the Funbag. And buy Drew’s book, The Night The Lights Went Out, while you’re at it. Today, we're talking domes, dipshits, USSR swag, and more.
Your letters:
Jonathan:
My successful, happily-married, 45-year-old longtime friend swears he uses Clorox disinfectant wipes to clean his asshole after taking a shit. This is certifiably insane, right?
Insane, no. Dumb, yes. PSA: Don’t wipe your ass with bleach. In my earlier parenting days, I didn’t know there was a difference between Clorox wipes and regular old Wet Ones wipes. But all you have to do is have a Clorox wipe touch broken skin to learn that difference. Why don’t you sit in a pool of iodine while you’re at it?
Tom:
How long before SoFi Field imitations take over and professional outdoor football in the cold is a thing of the past?
Never. You’ll have to live through another stadium cycle to see new(ish) outdoor venues like the Giants/Jets stadium replaced. And even if the New York teams do end up playing in a $20 billion stadiamall that’s still located in the Meadowlands, Lambeau Field will remain right where it is. If Green Bay ever put a roof on that fucker, John Madden would spring back to life just so that he could drop dead again. Purists love their outdoor football. And I love snow football, so I can’t ding them for it. Football, like every other field sport, was born outdoors. So it only makes sense that fans would prefer the game stay there. The NFL will oblige them, largely because many of its family-owned teams are too cheap to spring for a proper heating bill.
[New York Times headline voice] But is that a good thing? I never played football indoors in my life, so my default setting is outside > inside. Kurt Warner, somewhat famously, doesn’t agree. The Hall of Famer has gone on the record many times to say that every team should play in a dome because it makes for better football. His logic is that people want to see teams playing at their best, which requires putting those teams in optimal climate conditions. Rain, snow, and sleet are unwelcome interlopers, as far as Warner is concerned.
Now, if I had heard this opinion from just some random asshole pundit, I would’ve written it off on site. But Kurt Warner has authored some of the most entertaining games I’ve ever seen, many of which were not only played indoors, but in the St. Louis’ Rams’ old dome, which was about as well lit as Hill House. Not the most electric football atmosphere you’ll ever encounter, but it did the job. My favorite team also plays inside, which only bothers me when Packers and Bears fans act like their teams are magically tougher than mine because their players have to freeze their balls off eight times a season. Weather bragging is the lowest form of bragging, and it’s not like all of that outdoor exposure automatically gets you 2.0 EPA every game. So I like that Warner is at least trying to dispel the antiquated notion that dome teams are finesse teams. Soft teams.
But I’m not ready to get all the way in bed with him. I remember when the late Paul Zimmerman wrote a big thing in SI (I can’t find it online; boo Arena Group) about how excessive crowd noise needed to be penalized. He found it unfair that fans had the power to fuck with in-game communications, and he wanted the NFL to do something about it. It was, hands down, the stupidest NFL take I’ve ever read, and I’ve read plenty of them. This is football, old man, not fucking golf. You better be ready to deal with crowd noise. In fact, the NFL did try to penalize crowds in the 1990s, and everyone fucking hated it. So Dr. Z’s idea had already failed in practice, as it deserved to. I paid $300 for a ticket and you want me to be quiet? Fuck kinda country you think this is?
Same deal with the weather. Not only should NFL players have to account for the elements on principle, it also makes for good television. I’m here to watch the greatest players on earth overcome every form of adversity in order to win a game, which means that they need to SUFFER. Domes reduce the chance of suffering, which therefore makes them inferior. The Tuck Rule game happened in a snowstorm. Zero chance it would’ve been as awesome had they played that game in a giant hotel atrium.
(Sorry to use that game as an example, Raiders fans, but it really was incredible.)
JT:
Since the league has approved those big Guardian caps to be worn in games, wouldn't there be an advantage in having a team's entire defensive line use them? They look big enough that if there were four of them out there it would really obstruct a quarterback's vision. You could even deflect a few more passes during the season.
They’ll all be wearing guardian caps a few years from now. When the NFL allowed players to wear them in games, it was an obvious trial balloon. A few players opted to wear the caps this past weekend, and that number will steadily tick upward as both other players and fans get used to them. BUT BACK IN MY DAY PLAYERS DIDN’T WEAR HELMETS AT ALL! We’d bash our heads into one another until we could never eat solid food again, and we LIKED it! We LOVED it!
Michael:
If you were a prison guard and had to escort an extremely violent inmate with no arms to another area of the prison by yourself, how would you handle it?
I’d have to bust out the Hannibal Lecter equipment: gurney, straps, scary face mask. I can’t risk having The Stump Killer bite me, headbutt me, or roundhouse kick me into a wall. I need him immobilized. And sedated! Yeah! Strap that fucker down and then shoot him up real good with an Ambien/morphine speedball! And let me wear all of the latest tactical cop gear: Kevlar vest, Kevlar pants, Kevlar gloves, Kevlar undies, riot helmet, box of flash grenades. Plus good running shoes so that I can flee the second our man twitches.
Bob:
You recently referred to Bari Weiss as a dipshit, and it made me realize that I felt dipshit was inherently a word to call a man. Are there any insults that only apply to men vs. women (e.g., can a woman be a dick)? If gender is fluid, then I assume insults must be as well. But I wanted to get a second opinion.
All insults are now gender fluid. They need to be, because I can’t call someone like Kim Mulkey the b-word anymore. I have to call her an asshole, which is just as accurate but protects me from any allegations of being SEXISS. Win-win. I have had to wean myself off of a great number of slurs in my blogging career, and losing both the b-word and the p-word were hardest adjustments in that process. But fair is fair, and who says that men get sole dominion over over slurs? True, the majority of assholes and dipshits on Earth are men, but women deserve entrance into the canon as well. We have to have equal standards.
Would Bari Weiss herself agree with any of that? No. In fact, right now you can attend a class at the University of Austin called “Why Ain’t That A B*tch? How Softening Hate Speech Hurts All Speech.” The course costs $5,000, and the syllabus consists of Bret Stephens coming to your house and calling your baby the n-word (even if she’s white!). What a bargain.
Chris:
Do you think the little slap a QB gives the ball before a throw is technically necessary? Or is it "necessary," like clacking the tongs twice before manning the grill, or giving a tiedown strap a twang and announcing, "That's not going anywhere!"?
This is an annoying answer, but it depends. A lot of QBs need to be coached out of patting the ball, because it can tip off the defense. Drew Bledsoe was accused of being a patter when he was in New England, so much so that they made it a storyline in a local ad he once starred in. Bledsoe denied the charges, and would later have his lung punctured by Jets LB Mo Lewis.
But for other QBs, patting serves as a way to keep time. If you’re throwing to a spot instead of to a guy, your internal clock has to match your wideout’s internal clock. What’s a good way to do that? You guessed it: counting. Wow. Whoa. Poppin’ fresh dough. You know that crossing route will break open on a count of three, so PAT-PAT-PAT throw. Boom. Touchdown. Just that easy!
Now let’s zero in on the last part of Chris’s email. You KNOW I clack any set of tongs—kitchen or grill—before using them. That’s a mandatory dad tic. I also like to twirl my keys when I’m holding them (my wife hates this), play soft toss with myself using the TV remote, and tap my bat on home plate anytime I’m up in wiffle ball. All of it is needless, but fun. That’s life in the burbs for you.
Terry:
In the early 80s, my dad was in the U.S. Army and stationed in West Germany. During one of his sanctioned visits to West Berlin (and possibly even through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin), he acquired a Soviet flag. Hammer and sickle and all. I have been in possession of this flag for about 20 years now, and I used to hang it up in old dorm rooms and apartments. Not because I have some sort of diehard belief in Communism, but because I thought it was a cool piece of history.
Like any other sane person, I know that displaying Nazi paraphernalia is wholly wrong without question. I also know that the Soviet regime under Stalin was even worse to its own people than the Nazis. I'm willing to forgive myself for so proudly displaying it when I was younger and dumber, but should I feel embarrassed that I even own this flag to this day? (It's safely stored away.) Or am I allowed to keep it guilt-free as a piece of history?
Oh, I’d keep it. The “heritage not hate” defense fails miserably when you’re using it in service of the rebel flag or anything with a swastika. That’s because everyone knows you’re full of shit, and because both the swastika and the stars-and-bars have a historic record in the US of being used to both express hate and to cultivate it. Those flags mean something extremely specific. The Soviet flag isn’t as symbolically loaded. It used to mean you were down with Communism, but the Cold War ended 35 years ago, and many of us have realized in the ensuing years that Karl Marx had some good ideas. That leaves the hammer-and-sickle as more of an artifact than a signifier for some ongoing, evil underground movement. Hang it in your basement and people might think you’re a little weird, but they won’t have you arrested (unless you live in Florida).
Also, that flag looks fucking cool. A lot of old Soviet memorabilia does. My brother once made the U.S. junior national crew team and was sent to Hungary for the world championships. After the qualifying heats, teams would swap gear. And lemme tell you, the CCCP gear was easily the coolest gear. Everyone wanted some. I wanted some, and it wasn’t like I was part of communist plot to introduce a foreign substance into our precious bodily fluids. I just thought it looked badass. Plus what would Stalin have thought if he’d seen me, a snot-nosed capitalist, running around in USSR colors? Why, his mustache would fall right off of his face, it would! My brother got a CCCP windbreaker. I have no idea if he still owns it, but I bet he could get a nice amount for it if he ever posted it on eBay. Safer to own that than to hang the current Russian flag outside your home.
HALFTIME!
Chris:
The wife and I are going on a two week trip to New Zealand. We are massive fans of the original LOTR trilogy and will be visiting a few of the movie set locations. How many quotes per day (don’t tempt me!) can I squeeze in before my wife murders me?
She can’t murder you, even if she desperately wants to. That’s the upside of marriage. You know how many times I annoy my wife per day? Hundreds. You know when she’s gonna divorce me for it? NEVER. Too much paperwork. She bought the whole me when she said yes, and that means she’s stuck with it. Ha!
So I’ve subjected my wife to quotes from thousands of movies, many of which she hasn’t even seen. Austin Powers came out in 1997 and is one of the more tiresome films you could quote out loud in 2024. I quote it every day, more out of reflex than anything else. I don’t know why “My name is Richie Cunningham, and this is my wife Oprah” is part of my repertoire, but it’s there and it’s not going away anytime soon. My wife has learned to cope, either by tuning me out for the majority of any given day, or by joining me for a round of excited “Missus Kensington!”s.
Your wife can learn to adjust, too. Given that she’s a big LOTR fan, she’ll probably quote Gandalf as many times on that trip as you will. My wife, on the other hand, has never seen any of those films. So when I bust out a, “A wizard is never early, nor is he late. He arrives precisely when he means to!” she just ignores it and goes on with her life. That’s the kind of open give-and-take that every strong marriage is built upon. She’ll demand to sleep in a different room sometime within the next 10 years.
Brian:
This Boar's Head thing has me kind of messed up. Short of bespoke farm-to-whatever butchers cutting lunch meat that they personally raised, Boar's Head was generally the best lunch meat I can get around here. But the phrase "heavy meat buildup" lives here now. I can't escape it. I was looking for something for lunch today and my wife name-dropped the stuff. She had missed this debacle completely. Do I burden her with the news?
Yes, because Boar’s Head isn’t even that good. You’re conditioned to think of that brand as being a class above the Hormels of the world, mostly because their logo adorns the window of a few delis you like. But Boar’s Head’s factory conditions make it obvious that they make the same compacted-hobo-slurry lunchmeat as lesser brands, and the resulting product tastes no better. I know this because I have a long and documented history of eating cold cuts right out of the bag. The next good slice of Boar’s Head turkey I eat will be the first. It’s all dry as shit. Getting the paprika turkey improves nothing about it. And their other cuts hardly taste superior to those of Dietz & Watson, Citterio, Applegate Farms, or even Trump™ Olive Loaf.
With that in mind, consider this scandal an opportunity to move on to better, more delicious nitrate sources. Tell your wife the news about Boar’s Head. Tell her, “We can’t buy that shit anymore. It’ll make us sick. We need to step it up and start buying Iberico ham instead.” She’ll thank you for the intel, and you’ll never have to worry about standing water in a bologna kitchen ever again. You’ll be eating responsibly sourced meats from trusted brands. Like Hillshire Farms! I bet their processing plant is cleaner than a Disney sitcom.
Mitch:
When did "EDGE" become an actual position? I never noticed it before this year's draft and then it started showing up everywhere. I knew there were players who played at the edge, linemen mostly... but is this just my ignorance showing, or is this one of those things that appeared one day and we all went ahead acting like it had been around forever?
I explained this in a Funbag a year or so ago but it’s worth going over one more time. Basically, a lot traditional position names have fallen out of favor with both coaches and with analytics collectives. Lawrence Taylor was listed as a linebacker because he played the edge in a 3-4 defense. Reggie White was listed as a defensive end because he played the edge in a 4-3 defense. Those men had different body types, but they essentially played the same position. They were pass rushers first, and everything else second.
Coining the term EDGE is meant to address that. Having a base formation is out of date, because defensive coordinators have to change formations and personnel groupings depending upon the matchup any given week. So it’s silly to list Danielle Hunter as a “linebacker” when he doesn’t do much linebacker shit, if any. EDGE is both more accurate and more fluid. It looks clunky on paper, but I got used to that after a while.
Now “DI” or “IDL” instead of “DT”? I’m still trying to navigate that particular channel. All you need to know is that the game has evolved, which means that the terminology has to evolve with it. Plus using the newest football jargon makes you sound like you know tons about the sport. Ask Jon Gruden!
Ben:
I recently saw a clip of the Deftones playing live in San Francisco. Middle school/early High School me wanted nothing more than to be Chino Merino. Now he doesn’t even play guitar at his shows and sounds like I would singing their songs. What bands have you idolized but now sound like ass?
Well that’s most of them, isn’t it? It is rare, if impossible, for any band to keep up quality control as they age out of the scene. I think “Hackney Diamonds” is a legitimately great album, but that’s the Rolling Stones. Only the Rolling Stones get to be the Rolling Stones. Virtually every other band will fall off either due to age, infighting, creative fatigue, or lack of income. I accepted that a long time ago, so when an artist like Bob Mould cranks out top-shelf material decades after the height of their cultural relevance, I treat it as a pleasant surprise.
Because the majority of bands I like have either broken up or are playing state fairs for beer money. Did you know that the original GNR lineup, sans Izzy Stradlin, has released four brand new songs this decade? Did you know that all of them are lousy? That’s how it usually goes. That’s how it should go. If every band was good for 50 years, the music wouldn’t be as precious.
Adam:
I went to school at a Big Ten university and when I go back to occasionally visit with friends, we go to the restaurants we ate at while we were in college. Most of these places serve their drinks in plastic stadium-style cups. I’d usually bring one home after each visit as a souvenir. I’ve also attended a number of sporting events that serve drinks in those overpriced souvenir cups, and I bring THOSE home after the game, too. I have a giant Raiders cup from Allegiant Stadium but I am a Giants fan living in Chicago). One kitchen cabinet is overflowing with these cups. I use them regularly. At what age (I am just north of 50) does one graduate to actual glassware (which we have) and throw all of these in the trash?
If you haven’t ditched those cups by age 50, I doubt you ever will. They come in handy when small kids are around, plus they scratch the bro itch in the middle of an otherwise ordinary day. I had to spend weeks in bed recovering from my brain injury in 2018, and I kept a huge Washington Capitals tumbler on my nightstand the whole way through. I’d get a sip of water, see the team logo, think SPORTS!, and be happy for three seconds. It was nice.
But, like Adam, we have dozens more tchotchke cups down in our kitchen. My wife saved them, and still considers them valuable for reasons that escape me. In general, my wife is a fastidious woman who can’t wait to throw out anything in the house that doesn’t bring her joy, my leftovers included. But if I treat one of these cups as disposable—which they are—she turns hoarder and is like, “Don’t use that cup for that!” I don’t get it, but I’ve been married too long to pick a fight that isn’t worth winning.
Daniel:
The most exciting part of my work-from-home day is when I have to use the Authentication app on my phone to gain access to our work systems. To add spice to the routine, wait for the timer to drop below five seconds before starting to enter your code, and pretend that the timer is ticking down on a bomb. Just like in the movies!
No! I won’t! I hate it when that thing puts me on the clock. I just wanna log into an app, man. Don’t put pressure on me. Why don’t you focus on stopping the killing in Gaza instead, Google Authenticator?
Email of the week!
Matt:
The guy from last week's Funbag who wrote in about his issues with okra reminded of my own little issue a few weeks ago. We’d just bought a new KIA EV9 and were waiting for our local power company to get us squared away with an at home charger. But we were low on juice, so after the gym I stopped by the nearby Wal-Mart on my way home to take advantage of the fast chargers.
While waiting for the battery to juice up, I took a stroll through the Wal-Mart and found some Ice Breakers Sours. I also grab a can of Ollipop. I ate the whole pack of candy on my drive home. After all, they were pretty low cal because they were sweetened with Sorbitol. Problem was, apparently Sorbitol in large doses can cause stomach issues, and that's not taking into account that I’d already drank a soda that's basically Metamucil on steroids.
Right after the wife and I ate dinner, I sprinted to the bathroom to unleash everything I'd eaten from the previous day into the toilet in about five seconds. Despite my best efforts at telling her it wasn't what she made, she still thinks her dinner wrecked my bowels.
Did you at least get a souvenir cup?
